ILLUMINATIONS The word illumination comes from the Latin expression lumen, which means light, and denotes medieval miniature paintings or illuminations that accompany sacred texts as illustrations. The word also means spiritual enlightenment or revelation. I think this is the original significance of painting: a constant effort to depict revelations and to discover sensually perceivable forms as images of spiritual, personal and at the same time supra-personal, inner light through processes of growing creative dynamism. In this context I see my work as a set of illuminations or enlightenments both in the artistic and meta-artistic meaning of the word. The Bible in many places speaks of the visions of glowing rainbow colours in connection with mysterious, unknowable, life-giving and overwhelming revelations of the Divine. The inspiring power and significance of both visible and invisible mystical light preoccupied not only medieval theologians, illuminators, makers of stained-glass windows and painters of icons, but many 20th-century artists both in their writing and their work. The foremost among them were the pioneers of modern painting Kandinsky, Klee, Matisse, Malevich and – last but not least – Chagall with his extensive series of works with biblical motifs.